There are a few mobility milestones your kids hit and when they blow through these barriers your life changes forever (usually gets worse). Crawling allows them to make huge messes and break things you forgot to move higher. Walking allows them to break things even faster. ” We just can’t have nice things!” Growing tall enough to open doors is absolutely a game changer. Then you get lulled into comfort because there is a huge gap between opening doors and the next huge jump in mobility when they learn to ride a bike. This milestone changes everything: they can now break things anywhere in the neighborhood before you even know they left the house.

Ashton’s Clown Bike

For a time we had been able to cripple this mobility in Ashton by keeping him on his tiny, little, minature, clown bike. It took him four turns of the peddle to match one turn by his friends, so he couldn’t get far and he couldn’t go fast. Of course we always had to live with the persistent fear that he would run away and join the circus but it was worth the risk.

He is getting so huge we just couldn’t make Ashton wait until August for a birthday to get a new bike – it was too embarrassing for both of us. So the other day Josh and Ash went shopping and came home with Ashton’s new best friend. There hasn’t been such a union between a boy and his bike since maybe this guy…

Ashton’s life hasn’t been the same since. He is experiencing a whole new level of freedom, which, as his mom, freaks me right out. If it isn’t raining or snowing, he is outside riding his bike with about five other neighborhood pals. He and all the little neighborhood boys are like their own little biker gag! They just need a name and matching jackets. It’s completely cute, but as I mentioned, I’m a paranoid mom.

Look at that biker attitude

Emmy has inherited Ashton’s old bike and she is very happy about it.

It didn’t take long for Ashton to see the true potential and unleash the power of his new bike.

It took only a couple days for his first wipe-out…yes, with training wheels. He is trying not to let Josh take a picture but you can clearly see this war wound that made him completely unable to ride his bike for an entire afternoon.

The other day Josh had to run to the grocery store for something. On his way out, I decided that I needed to add “some kind of CHOCOLATE” to his short list. He said, “What should I get?” I didn’t know, I just needed something chocolatey, you know how it is.

I found this on the counter when I came to inspect his purchases…

I knew he would get a Milky Way Dark (I LOOOOVE them) but the rest was a surprise. What a cutie! Either he’s the sweetest husband in the world OOOOR he’s completely afraid of me….probably both.

Ashton LOVED watching the “Home Alone” movies this past Christmas. Thankfully, he didn’t pick up the attitude problem that Kevin had. He did love the bathroom scene and has insisted on doing his own hair ever since….

Ashton also loves this movie. He is STILL all about werewolves, bats, skeletons, ghosts…. anything having to do with Halloween. In this movie, Theodore turns into a tiny werewolf. If you notice, his hair is very similar to Kevin’s.

So Ashton used to tell me he wanted his hair like a werewolf. When I didn’t do it right (ON PURPOSE) he would take over. Here is Ashton’s hair, all ready for school. It looks the same for church unless I get really tricky and distract him which is usually impossible.

Ashton has preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. He LOVES it and it never stops being completely cute to me when he’s all ready to head out the door to catch his ride to school. This morning Emmy happened to have the camera and snapped this shot. I am so happy it turned out. I always pick Ashton up and hug and kiss him. The other day Josh said, “You know he’s not going to let you do that for very much longer.” SO SAD!!!! Until that day comes….

Then Emmy always has to run down the stairs to give him a hug, usually when he is already running down the sidewalk. This morning she hugged and kissed him and said,”You’re my best friend!” Oh wowie, heart melted!!!

So then I had a couple hours to spend with Emmy. We watched “Annie” (some of it, anyway) and played in her playhouse under the stairs. Here is my tiny girl watching her movie…

Wouldn’t it be great to have a Love Sac that giant all to yourself???!!!

Saturday morning, after almost two weeks of being stuck in the house with unsuccessful potty training and having a very sick little girl, I was wiped out and very grumpy. Josh saved the day, for everyone in our house, by insisting that I go take a nap while he and the kids went on an adventure. THAT sounded fun and I really wanted to go, but recognized my desperate need for sleep.

While I was snoozing, those guys went all over the place! Josh took them to Dakota’s where they fed her HUGE pigs and tiny goats. They went to a park to play. Then they went to another park to feed the ducks and played at ANOTHER playground. AND THEEEEEN Josh took them to McDonald’s.